Research shines a light on Kenya’s grassroot leadership

Tuesday 20 May 2025

Four adults engaging in a lively discussion while seated on colorful benches outdoors at The Generation Africa event. They are surrounded by greenery and a sign promoting positivity, new music, art, and hobbies.

Academics from Robert Gordon University (RGU) have led an innovative research project that shines a light on the responses of community groups to a vast range of significant sociocultural issues, such as economic inequality, violence, and access to water and sanitation, in Kenya’s capital city Nairobi.

The research explores how grassroots organisations navigate and respond to the complex web of everyday risks in informal settlements or so-called ‘slums’ through a range of different activities including sport, music, fashion and urban farming.

Resilience and Responses to Interconnecting Crises in Informal Settings is co-led by Dr. Natascha Mueller-Hirth, Associate Dean in the School of Law and Social Sciences at RGU, and Emeritus Professor Stephen Vertigans, with funding from the Scottish Funding Council and the International Strategic Partnership Fund (ISPF).

Dr Mueller-Hirth said: “Globally, over one billion people, including nearly 500 million children, live in such settlements, often in deeply precarious conditions.

“From modelling for grannies to DJ training for youth, these groups are transforming their communities from within. They are building peace through sport and drama, creating green public spaces, and fostering entrepreneurship with skills programmes that include everything from tailoring to urban farming.

“Rather than focusing on despair, we are highlighting strength, agency, and innovation. Informal settlements are frequently portrayed in a negative, often stigmatising light. Our research presents a different narrative—one that celebrates resilience, creativity, and grassroots leadership.”

As part of the project, a three-day symposium was held in Nairobi last summer that brought together representatives from 15 community-based organisations whose work focuses on areas such as gender-based violence, youth training and entrepreneurship, support for the elderly and environmentalism. The event was hosted in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest informal settlements, in partnership with Making A Difference Sisters, an organisation with expertise in empowering girls and women.

The event was followed by workshops to aid the development of an online toolkit which includes details about support available to community-based organisations, although it does not replace the need for local, national and international support for the extraordinary work that these community groups are making in the transformation of lives.

Furthermore, a film has been created as part of the research project. It was screened for the first time in Scotland at RGU in April 2025.

This research project draws from a long-standing experience of researching in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya. The RGU team have worked in various locations across Kenya jointly and individually since 2017 and have built relationships with academics with community-based organisations and activists, and with government departments.